Usually, in order to remove impurities between teeth which cannot be easily cleaned by a general tooth brush after a person eats food, a toothpick having one or two sharp ends or an interdental toothbrush is used. In other words, a toothpick and an interdental toothbrush may be used to prevent tooth decay and periodontal diseases in advance.
In more detail, a toothpick is made of wood, plastic, starch or the like and used for removing food residues between teeth. However, if a gap between teeth is small, the sharp end of the toothpick may not easily insert between the teeth and may not remove all food residues. In addition, the hard and sharp tip of a toothpick is prone to breaking, which greatly inconveniences a user.
In order to solve these problems, an interdental toothbrush having a brush mounted thereto has been manufactured and used. As shown in FIG. 1, an interdental toothbrush 10 includes a grip portion 11 easily gripped by a user, a brush portion 12 formed at one end of the grip portion 11, and a cover 15 for protecting the brush portion 12.
The brush portion 12 includes a wire unit 13 formed by two wires and a brush 14 having bristles formed at regular intervals in the longitudinal direction of the wire unit 13. In other words, as the wire unit 13 moves into and out of a gap between teeth, the brush 14 removes food residues.
However, the interdental toothbrush 10 having the brush 14 mounted thereto as described above has no market competition due to a high production cost caused by planting bristles of the brush 14 to the wire unit 13, and the metallic feeling of the wire gives a user an unpleasant feeling, which adds to the inconvenience.
In addition, since the wire unit 13 is produced by twisting thick wires, the wire unit 13 may not easily insert between teeth, making it difficult to properly clean the teeth.
Moreover, the hardness of the wires may frequently damage the gums.
Such a conventional toothpick and interdental toothbrush may not easily remove impurities between teeth. In addition, such conventional toothpick and interdental toothbrush may damage the gums, which may be a cause for disease, and may also cause tooth decay or cavities, damaging the structure of teeth in the long run.
Additionally, to injection-mold a toothpick to form a brush at an end of the toothpick by using the same material for both the brush and the toothpick, it is impossible to minutely form a plurality of bristles of the brush simultaneously at an end of the toothpick, and therefore, difficult to implement the features of the interdental toothbrush.